Posts: 1 to 25 of 36

Topic: Ok.

I guess I owe you guys an explanation for the shit I wrote in chat.

Yes, I've been getting really serious about suicide. It's hard to explain why, cause when i write out my feelings and my situation it doesn't really seem bad. I'm relatively healthy, I have a job, I'm not homeless, I have food, I haven't just lost someone... Lots of people have it worse than me. I just feel trapped and alone and helpless and it's gotten worse and worse for years and I don't see it getting any better, but I can see many ways that it will keep getting worse.

The things I used to enjoy doing no longer give me satisfaction and are generally more frustrating than anything. I just don't want to do anything except sit here and not do anything. I'll just sit here or I'll sleep or I'll sit outside. I used to be ambitious and had lots of ideas and things that I wanted to do, and after having failed at all of it over decades of attempts, I've just lost any desire to keep trying. I feel like I'm just waiting to die now, and it makes me question why I should bother waiting.

I don't have friends to talk about it with, I hate my family, and that's it. You guys responded to what I wrote in chat and it made me cry for like a half hour, but it made me realize that you are the only people I know outside of my family and my job, and I don't really know you. I've regularly thought about killing myself for a long time. Before I started posting here. I've always thought about it. I've just been planning it lately, just trying to decide how to do it and getting things ready. I don't know if I'll actually be able to do it.

You don't need to delete anything. I was like full-on mental breakdown when I wrote that in chat. I'm rational now. I just wanted to thank you guys for reaching a hand out.

Re: Ok.

It's hard to know how to respond. Very brave of you to open up. Sounds like you're exhibiting a few of the classical signs of clinical depression (w.g. worthlessness, lethargy) and there are treatments for that.It is a great forum but nothing beats the companionship of face-to-face interactions to (momentarily at least) ease the loneliness. I don't know which forum members are closest geographically to you... perhaps they can reach out to you by DM.All I can say is hang in here - there are still wonderful experiences to be had in the sunshine in the years to come. It'll all be over soon enough for everyone so why deliberately shorten it?I'm sorry your relationship with your family is dysfunctional. Me too. Totally toxic. You're definitely not the only one...

Philip Larkin once wrote...

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf.Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

Re: Ok.

As someone who was once one muscle twitch away from suicide, I deeply empathize with where you're at right now. I had no friends, no longer found joy in any of my favorite hobbies and activities, and was about to fail out of college, making a lie out of all the potential I was told I had. All I ever did was sleep and daydream about dying. It sucked and I was ready to just get it over with. Thankfully, someone noticed and got word to my family and they staged an intervention. I moved home, saw therapists, took pills, went to activities I was told I'd like, even if I didn't really want to, developed new hobbies, and made new friends. It took five years of effort and help, but I eventually clawed my way out of that pit, a different man to the one who fell in. It wasn't easy, but I don't for a second regret having done it, and mark it as an important part of becoming who I am today.

Start by going and seeing a doctor or psychiatrist or other mental health professional. Helping people like me and you is their job, and most of them are good at it. I was really stubborn about listening to a "head doctor" for way to long, and I would have gotten better way faster if I just gotten the stick out of my ass and done what he told me. Second, don't forget that we're here for you. Sure, we've never met, but we've been chatting on the same forum for eight god damn years, and we sure as fuck aint about to give up on you now. So no giving up on yourself either, alright?

Re: Ok.

Just as others have mentioned, I would highly highly recommend seeking some kind of clinical help with this. You do describe a lot of the classic signs of depression and getting actual help to deal with it can really do wonders. And the treatments for depression work. Seriously, if you seek help, then there is a statistically high probability of you feeling much better. You know how you mentioned losing interest in things that you used to like? Well, with the right treatment, you could actually regain these interests again. Life can feel like it's worth living again. At this point, what would it hurt to at least try, right?

And I know I'm not all that active on this forum, but I know that you have written quite a few movie reviews. I respect your analysis and opinions on movies. Last year, you posted this list of movies that you would immediately watch if they were on TV: http://friendsinyourhead.com/forum/view … 373#p60373 . And you know, I haven't watched all of those movies. But because of your recommendation, I have a list of movies I plan on watching that may help broaden my tastes. That may sound trivial, but it just proves that even little things like that can have a positive impact on others' lives. And so I know for a fact that the world would be worse without you living in it.

So please consider seeing a professional for help. There is a huge chance that your life could turn completely around as a result.

Re: Ok.

Also, Squigs, just because we could point to someone whose life is objectively more "difficult" doesn't make your struggles any less valid. Emotions are not to be commanded, and they matter. There doesn't have to be a reason for being depressed. You matter, goddammit. That's what matters. How you feel matters to me. This forum has lost people before, and we notice. They are missed.

I really, sincerely hope that you keep moving forward. And I know you said you have a job and all, but counseling can still be pretty expensive. I know it's hard to ask for extra help, but I have a decent chunk of money set aside specifically for helping friends when they need it. Let me know if you do.

And as was said before, a face-to-face would be great! If you're anywhere near Connecticut, I'd totally be down for a meet-up! Boter's in NY, and we spent a great weekend together. I'd love to meet up with another DiFer.

Granted, I'll probably talk about how I believe God has given me hope in really difficult times if you're willing to listen But if you're not, I'm totally good just to hang out and talk about everything else, or nothing at all. Sometimes just being in the same damn room is everything.

Re: Ok.

I won't pretend I have anything helpful to add, but I'll second everyone's urge for you to seek clinical help. You never know what's helpful til you try, and the world is a better place for every DiFer who's in it. All the best to you, man, and hang in there.

Re: Ok.

I really don't know what to say, because I'm stuck between wanting to talk about how well I understand what you're going through — like, in terms of neurophysiology and the mechanisms of human cognition — and wanting to talk about how poorly I understand what you're going through, in terms of... you know, everything.

The obvious solution is for me to listen and not talk; but, since this is a take-turns medium... I'm not going to talk about your situation (until I've heard more about it); instead, I'll talk about 'how brains work,' in a historical context — and if it's useful, awesome, and if not, we can always fall back on making fun of my pomposity.

Let's start here:

Nothing matters anymore.

Biologically-modern humans have existed for 1.5 million years — in other words, if I were to fly a DeLorean a million and a half years into the past, steal an infant, bring it to the future, and raise it to adulthood... when that antique baby eventually dies of old age, a modern mortician will examine the body, find nothing unusual about it, and go back to her sandwich. That's us: one and a half million years of identical hardware receiving software updates. (And battery improvements.) And for all this time — for all of human history, until the mid-1800s — all of the information you were ever asked to deal with mattered to you; the Incoming Information you received and analyzed over the course of a day was directly connected to actions you might take to directly affect your wellbeing. Throughout history, the overwhelming work of the human mind has been dedicated to navigating the world directly outside of it — my-health concerns, my-finance concerns, my-family concerns, my-emotion concerns, my-church concerns, my-security concerns, my-community concerns; time was, the contents of Your Daily Thinkin' could simply be described as 'navigating your own life,' without further elaboration. The process of 'adding thoughts to yourself' happened slowly, deliberately, and — 99.5% of the time — through books, pamphlets, or sermons you studied.

Now, within that context, grab ahold — real tightly — of how insane I'd seem expecting any opinion from you which was: 1) about someone you didn't know, 2) whom you'd never met, 3) whom you'd never meet, 4) whom you wouldn't recognize, 5) from a different social caste, 6) with whom you shared no interests, 7) who had no idea who you were, 8) and never would — and — I want your opinion to be: 9) existent, 10) informed, 11) reasonable, 12) current, 13) ready off the top of your head, and 14), while we're at it, 'particularly funny or insightful' would be good. If I had come back from the future to visit you in the past... and there's you, wiping down a bar, or making horseshoes, or fixing barrels... and I casually asked for your opinion on the recent behavior of somebody you didn't know, hundreds of miles away, whom you'd never recognize on the street, you would have rightfully considered me fucking insane for expecting you to have such an opinion — and all I ever did was ask your opinion of the President.

Holding tightly onto that insanity? Good.

Because then, thanks to clever advancements in the field of 'sparks,' our forefathers learned how to send messages over vast distances at the speed of light. Suddenly, wherever you were, the most relevant news from any distance would available to you in print within a week... and from that point forward — without ever reverting, slowing, or even merely coasting — the personal relevance of your Incoming Information continued to decrease, while the speed of its delivery continued to increase. At first it was just the most-important stuff, arriving at your doorstep a week later; then it was Big News In General, which would arrive within a couple of days; then it was The News, which would arrive the following day, and so on.

We added the concept of mass-print graphics to our Incoming Information — images of any kind, mostly in advertisements at first — and eventually we added photo-likenesses as well; then we added radio, and eventually TV; we went from being a culture with an average 'books-per-lifetime' rate in the hundreds to being a culture with an average 'books-per-lifetime' rate in the low tens. (Early America was a bizarrely literate culture — like, world-bizarrely. I'm forgetting the exact quote, but at one point Thomas Jefferson made a crack about ours being the only farmers in the world who had read Cicero. [Or someone, I forget the author.]) Moreover, we found new ways to go about implementing all of this newfound personally-irrelevant information: at first it was crosswords and quiz programs, to provide a minor recreational framework for decontextualized information; then we instituted frameworks in the actual culture for frequent discussion of General National Topics — and, by the time JFK is assassinated, the predominant cultural medium of the West is television, the daily life of citizens includes whole bathubs of 'irrelevant' information, the experience of being alive comes to mean 'vicariously having a meaninglessly summarized abstraction of the world everywhere but where you aredescribed to you (in whichever terms television finds most convenient)' — and society has become completely unrecognizable to our highly-literate, highly-sparky forefathers.

That was fifty years ago.

For all of human history, 99.5% of the Incoming Information you received was solely intended to be acted upon.

These days, it's the opposite.

Nothing matters anymore.

If you offered any of us a chance to switch places with those folks, we'd spend roughly one second tabulating how profoundly under-stimulating our lives would become, and we'd pass on the opportunity, and we'd be right to: the lack of stimulation would drive us completely nuts. It'd take us years and years just to get used to it — and even then, we'd never stop wanting it back.

But, you want to know something interesting about living a life wherein all of the Incoming Information is directly relevant to your actions? Everything has meaning, thoughts have consequences, you're consistently the beneficiary of your own insights, 'news' is synonymous with 'changes', every effort your brain makes has measurable value in some directly-relevant context of your own life, you are engaged, and... you're not depressed.

Sure, you might be miserable, but you're rarely numb. (Unless one of your kids has recently died, but even so, that's a common culturally-supported experience — sad, not alienating.) Depression is a disease, it has always existed; that said, our societies have taken wildly different shapes over the years, and depression-as-a-disease expresses itself with various efficiency under various circumstances: even for a major depressive, it's easier to be depressed as a prince than as a forager. You're already intuiting why, but I'll spell it out for funsies: when your thoughts and actions have consequences directly related to your survival [or at least your well-being], you're simply being rewarded more for those thoughts and actions. Responsibility-for-consequence keeps your brain engaged in a framework of meaningful stakes; whether you become a forager for yourself or totally responsible for someone else, being useful means you're engaged in something meaningful, which means it's hard to be depressed when you're useful.

The irrelevant information we've replaced our culture with (and our significance) is a trifling parade and a grand larceny. It's become a toy with which we amuse our souls to death, and some souls burn through the meaninglessness faster than others.

Like I said, I'm not writing to give advice — but if I was, two things come to mind:

1) Become useful to somebody. You can always follow the depression advice everyone gives — exercise, diet changes, therapy, meditation, whatever — and none of those are in-effective, but... honestly, after years of reading about psychology and cognition and ideology and anthropology and history and everything else, I'm pretty sure the actual shortcut is "invest your mind in any ongoing framework of wherein your actions directly affect the stakes for yourself or somebody else." (I'm basically telling you to go make friends at a nursing home or play video games with kids at the hospital [real thing]; shit like this sounds freaky and exhausting and intimidating, but it's far more likely to be successful than 'inventing a personal project with personal stakes' would be. It's just easier to become invested in your value to someone else than invested in some personal project — and, come to think of it, the reason why is pretty much the 'Teague Law of Sympathy.' Same shortcut: you invest in the pain you see.)

2) Pull your head out. I don't mean 'snap out of it' — I can hang; this is useless advice — I mean, "fuck 'it'." Literally change value systems. Get perspective on your worldview by watching how its ass jiggles on the way out the door. Care about new things, and stop caring about old things. Learn about new things, and stop learning about old things. (I learned about history and stopped learning about movies, which brings us to the present.) That wistful feeling you might have felt while reading this post and ruminating about alternative value systems and how we all might fare differently if only society happened to be playing a different game right now... I mean, if you felt that... you felt it. That was real. That was an interesting result, and it was nothing more than the natural effect of investing your imagination in the prospect of a different ideology for self-appraisal.

You know how they say depressed people are really just realistic people in disguise? That compliment fails to be comforting because nobody ever felt better about being told they're realistically appraising their prison. The thing is, one can escape from an ideology — I mean, it's hard; it's been hard for me, and I don't have 'world isn't worth it' disorder — but once you've done it, just once, you realize how much of your daily experience is really just an unexamined habit.

'Snap out of it' is useless advice because it means 'stop thinking your current thoughts and just reset to the default ideology of irrelevance' — perfect, and you're right back where you started: nothing the world is telling you matters, and nothing you're telling the world matters, and you don't matter. The problem is the ideology-of-irrelevance. The problem — systemically — is that nothing matters.

But this is a flaw in society, not humanity — it's not a constant. One and a half million years ago, and also two hundred years ago, society was set up in such a way that dopaminergic rewards were tied to meaning, not novelty. That shit still works; all the drivers are pre-installed. Same hardware, updating software — and our current software fucking sucks at delivering meaning to the people who actually need it.

Fortunately, you're a programmer.

"Be careful how you see the world, because it's like that." — Anonymous

Re: Ok.

Squiggly.

I hear you.

I've battled depression for as long as I can remember, and while I've never been to the suicidal level, I've dabbed in the floors above it several times. That cellar door and I? We're old friends. I've carved so many messages in that nonresponsive door, I've cut holes straight through it, only to find darkness behind it. I may never have opened it directly, but I've peeked through the slits, and all it is is nothing. While some days, nothing can seem like the better choice, imagine if that nothing will consume you forever? Imagine if you die, you cease to exist in a corporeal plane, but your mind continues, into a dark, nothingness forever. If that's the case, I know I'll want to live my life as best as I can, until the darkness finally consumes me in the end. If that's how the infamous afterlife is like, I'd certainly like to put it on hold for as long as I fucking can.

Depression is a fickle bitch. There doesn't seem to be an actual cure for it. There are anti-depressant, yes. But they will only work for as long as you're taking them, and while the effects may differ, the general consensus is that if emotions range from 0-10, you'll be taken away from the whole range, and compressed to somewhere in the middle. No, you won't feel as down as you usually do, but those fleeting moments of euphoric happiness will also disappear. Sure, you become more stable, and believe me, that can feel real nice for awhile, but there's always the fear of what will happen once you run out of happy-pills, or if you, like me, decide to quit them altogether.

Now, speaking for myself, quitting was hard, but right now, I'm in a state where I'd rather have a full range, than be surpressed, and I don't know how long I'll keep that up.

But I'm not necessarily the issue here.

What I've found over the years, is loneliness can be dampened. If you don't have a family you can go to; fuck'em. Family are the "friends" that life has forced upon you. Like when we're kids, we're forced to hang out with cousins and other family and relatives we may not even like, simply because they're family. They're bloodline. They're easy to simply push onto other family members, and say "go, play". Now I've not been much of a family person myself, so I can relate. While I'm not at your levels, I do just fine without them. Most of them anyway.Friends can be a very important catalyst. And, if you lack people to call friends in real life, online interactions can be just as good. In fact, in some cases, even better. Introverts tend to like to talk to people, but at their own merits. I can love people, but sometimes I want to be alone, whilst at the same time not. That's when phone calls and chats come into the equation. I can answer at my own pace, and I can seek out people when _I_ want to.

Hobbies, are also important. People change. For instance, when I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was sit in my room and play on my playstation, only exiting to eat, attend school, and potentially buy more games. After awhile, I changed, and this felt boring, even though I knew I used to like it. So, I became more and more apathic towards such things.So, the search for new hobbies came along. Making videos, making music, making podcasts, etc. Stimulating the creative side of the brain, helps for me.

But not for everyone. Some people want the routine, mundane, day-to-day life in order for them to work. And that's great too. If you're able to find what works for YOU, that's the important bit.

And, always remember that depression doesn't get easier in this day and age. 20 years ago, suffering from the same levels of depression was still different, because today, almost everything revolves around aknowledgement and social media. Everyone wants to be special, and heard, and it's easy to lose hope, and travel down towards that dark cellar door when things don't go your way, or the crowd you want doesn't enjoy your work.

But you know what? FUCK THEM. We didn't need that social status 20 years ago, and we still don't. You are still an individual, just as you were 10, 20, 30, however many years ago. I don't know how old you are, so I'm making assumptions here.

Of course, as mentioned above, there are "head doctors". These people have gone to several years of school, to learn how the brain works, and to help people who suffer mentally. Studies have shown the brain responds the same way to mental pain, as it does to physical pain, it just requires a different method of healing. Depression can, in a lot of cases, be cured, via shrinks or meds. Of course, not always. But in my humble opinion, it certainly won't hurt to try, even though it may feel like you're "sinking to that level". Just as depression isn't a "popular thing", but an actual, clinical illness, talking to psychiatrists isn't embarrasing, it's highly encouraged, in order to work out what's bothering you, with someone who are actually educated to help that exact issue.

And, hey, if you want someone to talk to, say the word. I'm on Skype, Facebook, DM's, Twitter, the lot. I'm just a "hi" or a phonecall away. Any time. We don't even have to talk about what's bothering you. We can chat about the weather, cahuenga labs, otters, the space-time continuum, whether or not drinking your own urine will help in any sort of way, your favorite color, or, I don't know; crisps. I'm a good listener, and I'm a good speaker. Hit me up.

Re: Ok.

As someone who has battled depression and thoughts of suicide, as well as in the mental health field, all I can say is get help! The internet, bane of humanity's existence that it is, also offers profound resources in suicide prevention, including hotlines and online therapists and self-help groups.

Re: Ok.

Hey everyone.

Yes, hi. Been a while.

Squiggly, I could say a million things that others have said in this thread. What I will do is post something that helped me when I was. where you are. If you are familiar with Comic Book writer Matt Fraction, you might be aware of this post he made on his tumbler a few years back when a fan of his wrote him to tell him that he was contemplating suicide. With indulgence, I ask you read this.

"well… well first off, i’d say, seek professional help immediately. because i am wildly unqualified to answer your question with anything but experience. and first off, my experience says, if you are in such a deep and dark place where you say things like this to total strangers on the internet, you need to be in contact with someone that can help you start to heal.

second, i’d say… you’re wrong. i’d say the things any of us don’t know, especially about tomorrow, could blanket every grain of sand on every beach of the world with bullshit. And to simply assume you are done tomorrow because you are done today is a mistake. a factual mistake, an error, a critical miscalculation.

i’d say, read Tad Friend’s piece JUMPERS in which he seeks and finds and talks to people that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge – and lived. And they all say the same variations this: “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

And know that this piece has kept me in my seat on more than a couple dark nights.

And i’d say – i’d say i felt that way before too, and i was wrong.

And then i’d tell you something i don’t even think my wife knows. this happend years before we met – shit, more than a decade – and it’s not the first time i came close to suicide was on a thanksgiving night. i’d eaten well and then as the house shut down i went into the bathroom, drew a bath as hot as i could manage to stand, and climbed into the tub with a razor blade.

As i started to cut, as the corner touched my skin and that jolt of pain fired into my head, i stopped and thought – y'know, last chance. Are you SURE?

And i was tired. I sounded like you, that i knew there’d be ups again and downs but i was just so fucking TIRED i couldn’t stand the thought of having to get there. I felt this… this never-ending crush of days that were grey and tepid but for some reason i was supposed to greet each one with a smile. the constant pressure of having to keep my shit in all the time was just exhausting.

I wondered, then – well, is there anything you’re curious about. Anything you want to see play out. And i thought of a comic i was reading and i’d not figured out the end of the current storyline. And i realized I had curiosity. And that was the hook i’d hang my hat on. that by wanting to see how something played out I wasn’t really ready. That little sprout of a thing poking up through all that black earth kept me around a little longer.

I realized then that it had been so long since i’d laughed. I was numbed out and shut down and just… i missed laughing. maybe if i laughed a little i could get moving again. so i’d wait for my comic to conclude, try to find a few laughs, and then reevaluate.

So I’m in the bathtub and i got this real sharp-ass razor, right? And i look down and there’s all my bits floating in the water like they do and i thought okay, let’s get funny and i got to work.

I shaved off exactly half my pubic hair vertically. The end result was a ‘fro of pubes that looked like a Chia Pet that only half-worked. I started to laugh as I did it. And every time i’d piss, looking down made me laugh.

Because JESUS what a nightmare.

Shortly thereafter I got very heavily into Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. Way less chafing and way more funny.

jesus. i was still in high school at the time. dig if you will a picture of the chubby weirdo that was always giggling at his dick in the bathroom. that was me.

And then I guess I’d tell you about Dave, who did the same thing as me a few years later, only DIDN’T have my hilarious Chia Dick strategy in mind and got the razor in and up. And as he started to bleed out “Brown Eyed Girl” came on the radio and he realized he’d never get to hear that again so, in a bloody comedy of errors – I swear to god this is true – he got out of the tub, tried to get dressed the best he could, went downstairs calling for help only to find his family gone, went out to his car, and drove to doug’s house only to find doug not home and so, then, finally, he blacked out from blood loss sitting there in his car, playing a van morrison CD on repeat, until, by luck, Doug’s mom came home and found him.

Fucking Van Morrison, y'know?

A song, a comic, something dumb, something small. From that seed can come everything else, I swear to god.

I guess last I’d say… I’d say that, look – if you reached out to me for an answer, than I have to reach back out to you and insist you hear it. Because it means, what, you know me? My work? You read my stuff and thought, well, fuck, if anyone would know why I shouldn’t end my life, if anyone alive is QUALIFIED TO SAVE ME it’s the guy that had britney spears punch a bear? okay – okay, then, so as THAT GUY I’m saying: Get help. Now, today, tonight, whenever – get to a phone and find a doctor that can try to help you heal, that can try to recolorize your world again, that can help you start caring again. All you need is that one tiny thing, that speck, that little grain of sand. the World Series, AVENGERS 2, Tina Fey’s new show, the first issue of PRETTY DEADLY, some slice of the world you’ve never seen, some drink you love, who the fuck will love your dog like you do if you’re gone, what if jabrams KILLS it on the new STAR WARS, the hell are you doing for Halloween, you ever feed a dolphin with your bare hand? because i have and I am fucking telling you IT IS A THING TO EXPERIENCE and oh god WHAT FUCKING FONT WILL STARBUCKS USE ON THE CHRISTMAS DRINK SLEEVES THIS YEAR – i don’t care what or how dumb but i promise you somewhere in your life is that one fleck of dust that can help start you on the road back. That’s all it takes. One fucking mote, drifting through your head.

And because you asked me I am answering you because i know, motherfucker, i know, i know, i know the hole you are fucking in because I was there myself and if you look hard you can still see my writing on those walls and if you stare long enough i swear to god it’s pointing to up"

Re: Ok.

Well, as long as we're sharing music related depression anecdotes and that one thing that keeps you going, I too have a story. It's a well known fact that I love Kpop. If you've been around the board a while, you've probably seen me mention it or link music videos. In fact, I don't just love kpop, I almost exclusively listen to kpop. It's basically become the sound track of my life. How did this come to be?So, flash back to 2010, or maybe early 2011. I'm depressed, life sucks, and I'm sitting at my computer daydreaming about how great it would be if I just somehow became dead while I kept my body busy by aimlessly browsing the internet. I'm just braindead clicking links until I just happen to get linked to the music video for Gee by Girls' Generation. I listen to it, and something crazy happens. I stop. I take notice. Instead of hitting back and scrolling on to the next link, my cursor finds its way to the replay button, and clicks it. I listen again. I crack a small smile. I replay it again. And again.Two hours later, I've finally stopped listing to Gee on loop, but only because I have now pirated Girls' Generation's entire discography and am listing to it on shuffle. I don't know what it is about kpop, my brain, and serotonin, but it's a match made in heaven. Like some kind of cheat code for mood regulation, kpop makes me happy. Of course, it has it's limits, and it didn't magically immediately cure my depression, but having it to help lift my mood on the bad days was invaluable. Not that I always did, stupid depressed brain wanting to be depressed is insidious. But even so, I did end up listing to it a lot and it made me really fall in love with the genre. Well, the listening a lot and the fact that it's basically like auditory drugs for me.Anyway I don't have any sage advice or moral conclusion or motivating speech to wrap this story up with, I just felt like sharing. I don't talk about that time in my life much, but it's kinda nice to let it out sometimes.

Re: Ok.

I've realized I've checked every new response here holding my breath, but never wrote anything myself. Felt like everything had already been told, really.

It has.

And it might be too late to add something. I loathe myself for it.

You guys know what the worst thing is? If Squigs has decided to end everything, we'll probably never know. This is the weird side of an Internet community. You care about people, but they may be one close window button away from never being heard from again.

- This is not true for everyone. If Tom stops giving news, I've been to his home. I'll take the next flight to the frozen pile of rocky shit that his archipelago is and kick his Norwegian ass. -

Now I don't know, Squigs. Forum says you haven't been online since october 3rd. That may be true, or maybe you check the forum anonymously from time to time.

But hear me out.

Every time I open a tab to this forum and magically allow this particular group of friends to keep existing in my life, I think of you. Where is he? What's he doing? Is he okay? I'll check for new posts in topics I'm interested in, all the while looking at this "Ok." thread and feeling something strange. We've never properly talked, posts of ours may have crossed and interacted, in the forum or in the chat. And I mean... millions of people come and go on the Internet every day.

But this here is a family.

Like every family, there is a whole spectrum of people. Like every family, you don't get to choose these people. There are people you get along with, some you don't. They're not perfect. BDA is sometimes a quick-angered jerk. Tom a pretentious prick. Sometimes I don't understand a word Regan says. Owen is twelve.

But it's a family. That means I care. I don't get to define how much I care. I just do. I want these people in my family to be okay. I'm not sure I perfectly knew who Invid was, but then he was gone and I was deeply sad.

This is my family. I love you all unconditionally. That means also you.

I know depression. I don't know yours, everyone has their own. But I know mind numbness. I know the "average grey" color. That I don't like or understand who I am, and I don't want it. I didn't even choose it. Fuck this arbitrary universe.

But when a glimpse of light is emitted, I see that I wouldn't want to be, couldn't be, anyone else. Because it wouldn't be me. It's a strange paradox that falls purely under logic. If I weren't me, it wouldn't be me.

I have principles, logic. A way of thinking, however broken I believe it to be. It exists, and it gives me judgement. I believe some things are right, I believe some are not. Even when I don't feel like I like things anymore, I'd rather have them than other things. I just don't see myself as being worth them.

And it dawns on me, I'd rather have this than nothing.

Nothing is the absence of pain, of difficulty. Undecidedness, numbness. But it's nothing. It's beyond boring. It's the absence of anything. No thoughts. Not even darkness. Darkness is something, because you realize it's there. It's like that moment when you fall asleep. You never realize it, you never remember it.

It also reminds me of discussions I've had as a child with my dad about trying to figure out what's beyond our universe, if it's finite. That thing we call the néant, or void. What's it look like? "Well, nothing", my dad said. But I insisted, what if I were to look at it? What would I see? Black? Pure darkness? White noise? "Nothing."

That can't be right.

Assume you're staring at the end of the universe. You cut a hole in it. Tear it open. You stare through that hole. What do you see?

"Nothing."

I didn't like that. Couldn't wrap my head around it.

And you know what? Years later, when I finally understood what it meant for the universe to be infinite, I was hella relieved. I didn't have to try and imagine that fucking void anymore.

However, the universe is infinite (far as I know), but our lives ain't. And so my dreaded void is still here somewhere.

Yeah, I'm fucking scared of dying. I want to see the universe unfold, that great big story. I want to see galaxies collide, stars fire up and die. I want to understand and know. Life is fucking unjust, you get the ability to understand things, and after a few years of mountains moving a few inches at best, you're gone.

Goddammit.

But I understand all this because I live. Because I think, and learn, and love, and hate. Wanting this life to be gone would be a complete paradox.

I dream. I want dreams to be true. That fucking void doesn't dream. I don't want that void. I'd rather have dreams that never come true.

Be okay, Squigs. Break the cycle. Hike up a mountain. Get lost in wilderness. Look at nature, doing its thing without caring a bit about that silly species that asks itself questions. I'm not even talking about plants or animals, that get hurt in the process. I'm talking about mountains, giants moving at billions-of-years speeds. Light coming and going, water evaporating and condensing, laws of physics happening. Stare at our universe. Marvel at this whole thing around us, that created us, that was, that is, that will be. Those things way beyond us. The universe is alive. Even the coldness of space is alive. It is.

The humbleness it commands me fuels my life. Nothing matters at my scale, or any scale. Let's enjoy it and contemplate it.

And give us some news while you're at it.

Last edited by Saniss (2018-10-23 06:31:19)

Sébastien FraudFacebook | Twitter | 500px"We're gonna build a great green screen, and make the traditional matte painters pay for it"Saniss for President 2016 - "Make VFX great again"